Annie Needham’s Empathetic Attachments

Annie Needham is a speculative designer, fiction writer, architect, knitter, and… empathetic attachment maker. Have you ever wanted to feel something, or some experience, that was completely out of reach? What could it be like to stand in a shark cage? Feel colors? Go Okie-Noodling? Well, with these “Empathetic Attachments,” you can. The devices create the experience for someone who wanted to feel the same stress, anxiety, and excitement of the event without necessarily doing it.

For this second iteration of the project, Annie created a device that would allow the user to “feel colors.” I don’t know about you… but I sure would like one of those for myself. A combination of schematic illustrations, product design, and photography of the device in use, work together to form a narrative around the potential impact of such gadgets in our daily lives.